Day 175: Still Summer After All

2026-07-31Hello! I should have expected this.I'm lucky that bugs didn't transmit any diseases into me, but the summer season where I live brings itching mosquitoes and the annoying flies.The bugs even enter my house, attacking the kitchen pantry and laying eggs. I don't see them come in, so I can only assume there's a secret cache of eggs or a hidden crack in the walls that lets the bugs through. Harmless, but annoying.This is a swarm of bugs close to the river. With tall grass and taller trees, I aimed my camera at the perfect angle to show the bugs brightening up in sunset light.More difficult was the focus. The camera can't be trusted to autofocus on such an erratic, tiny object, so I set it to manual mode and adjusted the lens until it was just about where the bug swarm was hovering.I like the color in this image — the orange sun is so vibrant and the glow around the leaves (and bugs) is excellent.As the sun went down, I went home to cull through the day's photos and draft these…